Do you get the sense that there is any chance a “non-partisan” or “non-biased” or “politically centered” media outlet could thrive in today’s media ecosystem? I’m thinking no.
Loved this article by the way.
I’ll throw out an observation. There are two main media biases for which media outlets operate – a principle/values based bias or a political bias. The more straight up ideological media outlets (thinking Reason for libertarians or The Nation for progressives) have a principle/values bias where their values are applied consistently, which means that they will grill politicians from both parties that stray from the publication's values.
Then there is the NY Times and the Fox New of the world, that don’t seem to apply consistent values, they apply consistent political bias instead. Bending values to favor one party or harm the other party.
Again, a lot of this is pressure from the demand side. And when a news organization (really, any organization for that matter) gets big enough where the profits matter and investors become involved, then the organizations become a victim of their own success and must concentrate more on satisfying customer demand rather than integrity of process.
For your first question, I am not sure. It's an empirical question in a sense: how many people would be interested to have such an offering instead of the rest? In heavily polarised countries like the USA, it is certainly harder than in not too polarised countries like Australia.
I'll take your second observation as reflecting, as you suggest, the fact that some bias is "supply-side": some media organisation have an agenda/preference and commit to it beyond a pure pursuit of monetary profit (the conditions for this are quite interesting). The second type of bias is driven by an anticipation of the "demand-side" interest for bias.
This is a fantastic post and I need to think about it for a while. But one immediate reaction is that this situation cannot be an equilibrium; if people quite generally are buying rationalizations there has to be a market for exposing bias, for which demand will come from people betting on the future (in prediction markets specifically or financial assets, including insurance contracts, more broadly). The suppliers in this market have to think like scientists, not lawyers, and build a reputation for this.
Thanks Rajiv! You raise a very good question and make a very interesting suggestion. I think I'll address it in a later post. A very short answer would be that betting on truth is beneficial in the long term, but the long term can be very far away. You know Keynes' quote: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." It is likely that the markeplace for ideas can stay irrational for a long time. So, I think it's compatible with an equilibrium where a lot of the political debate is swayed by narratives shaped by the short-term incentives of coalitional conflicts. But you are right, there will be an industry for truth and indeed science as an institution may foster incentives more aligned with long term considerations.
For stocks and other assets of indefinite maturity the long run can be very long but prediction markets have exact event resolution dates which makes bias very costly even in the short run. Discussed this issue in the context of polarization here:
I like prediction markets very much. I studied their ability to make future predictions myself and I find their calibration in the short term very good. Unfortunately, they face a lot of challenges for long-term predictions. When simply predicting future events, current prediction markets have an in-built bias making prices imprecise in the long run (https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/123/568/491/5079498). More importantly a lot of the arguments we care about are about conditional propositions, e.g., "Nikki Haley is a better candidate to beat Biden = she would have a higher probability to beat Biden if she is selected." Prediction markets face difficulties when predicting these (https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Prediction_Markets/jd2rAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=lionel+page+prediction+markets&pg=PA123&printsec=frontcover). There may be solutions to these challenges, but, in the present environment, I do not think that prediction markets offer enough incentives to change substantially the dynamics of the market of rationalisations.
Yes I see your point but consider this. Suppose that all information markets are markets for rationalizations. Then someone interested in forecasting accurately (either because they are a trader, or considering real estate in coastal Florida, or setting insurance premiums, etc) will face strong incentives to consider a variety of sources offering inconsistent rationalizations. There will be a maryfor people who offer multiple perspectives. Discussed this a bit in my recent podcast conversation with Glenn Loury
I've also been looking at how and where people seek information when they suspect sources are biased but do not know the size or even direction. Interesting trade-off between well informed and well understood sources:
Very interesting. I'll look into these references. Overall, I don't think our perspectives are incompatible. The initial point of the post was that instead of the ideal market for ideas where the best ideas wins, actual market for ideas may work differently because people involved engage in motivated reasoning. But it does not mean that incentive for truth exist. Indeed some social settings, like science, can provide incentives to look for the truth. A key question becomes how do we design social institutions to foster such incentives.
Do you get the sense that there is any chance a “non-partisan” or “non-biased” or “politically centered” media outlet could thrive in today’s media ecosystem? I’m thinking no.
Loved this article by the way.
I’ll throw out an observation. There are two main media biases for which media outlets operate – a principle/values based bias or a political bias. The more straight up ideological media outlets (thinking Reason for libertarians or The Nation for progressives) have a principle/values bias where their values are applied consistently, which means that they will grill politicians from both parties that stray from the publication's values.
Then there is the NY Times and the Fox New of the world, that don’t seem to apply consistent values, they apply consistent political bias instead. Bending values to favor one party or harm the other party.
Again, a lot of this is pressure from the demand side. And when a news organization (really, any organization for that matter) gets big enough where the profits matter and investors become involved, then the organizations become a victim of their own success and must concentrate more on satisfying customer demand rather than integrity of process.
For your first question, I am not sure. It's an empirical question in a sense: how many people would be interested to have such an offering instead of the rest? In heavily polarised countries like the USA, it is certainly harder than in not too polarised countries like Australia.
I'll take your second observation as reflecting, as you suggest, the fact that some bias is "supply-side": some media organisation have an agenda/preference and commit to it beyond a pure pursuit of monetary profit (the conditions for this are quite interesting). The second type of bias is driven by an anticipation of the "demand-side" interest for bias.
This is a fantastic post and I need to think about it for a while. But one immediate reaction is that this situation cannot be an equilibrium; if people quite generally are buying rationalizations there has to be a market for exposing bias, for which demand will come from people betting on the future (in prediction markets specifically or financial assets, including insurance contracts, more broadly). The suppliers in this market have to think like scientists, not lawyers, and build a reputation for this.
Thanks Rajiv! You raise a very good question and make a very interesting suggestion. I think I'll address it in a later post. A very short answer would be that betting on truth is beneficial in the long term, but the long term can be very far away. You know Keynes' quote: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." It is likely that the markeplace for ideas can stay irrational for a long time. So, I think it's compatible with an equilibrium where a lot of the political debate is swayed by narratives shaped by the short-term incentives of coalitional conflicts. But you are right, there will be an industry for truth and indeed science as an institution may foster incentives more aligned with long term considerations.
For stocks and other assets of indefinite maturity the long run can be very long but prediction markets have exact event resolution dates which makes bias very costly even in the short run. Discussed this issue in the context of polarization here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/rajivsethi/p/prediction-markets-in-a-polarized
I like prediction markets very much. I studied their ability to make future predictions myself and I find their calibration in the short term very good. Unfortunately, they face a lot of challenges for long-term predictions. When simply predicting future events, current prediction markets have an in-built bias making prices imprecise in the long run (https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/123/568/491/5079498). More importantly a lot of the arguments we care about are about conditional propositions, e.g., "Nikki Haley is a better candidate to beat Biden = she would have a higher probability to beat Biden if she is selected." Prediction markets face difficulties when predicting these (https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Prediction_Markets/jd2rAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=lionel+page+prediction+markets&pg=PA123&printsec=frontcover). There may be solutions to these challenges, but, in the present environment, I do not think that prediction markets offer enough incentives to change substantially the dynamics of the market of rationalisations.
Yes I see your point but consider this. Suppose that all information markets are markets for rationalizations. Then someone interested in forecasting accurately (either because they are a trader, or considering real estate in coastal Florida, or setting insurance premiums, etc) will face strong incentives to consider a variety of sources offering inconsistent rationalizations. There will be a maryfor people who offer multiple perspectives. Discussed this a bit in my recent podcast conversation with Glenn Loury
https://glennloury.substack.com/p/rajiv-sethi-self-censorship-on-campus
I've also been looking at how and where people seek information when they suspect sources are biased but do not know the size or even direction. Interesting trade-off between well informed and well understood sources:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.3982/ECTA13320
There has to be some intersection between these ideas and yours, will think about it some more.
*a market for people
Very interesting. I'll look into these references. Overall, I don't think our perspectives are incompatible. The initial point of the post was that instead of the ideal market for ideas where the best ideas wins, actual market for ideas may work differently because people involved engage in motivated reasoning. But it does not mean that incentive for truth exist. Indeed some social settings, like science, can provide incentives to look for the truth. A key question becomes how do we design social institutions to foster such incentives.